3D
Mark 2000 is DirectX 7 based but since there is such a large amount of benchmarks
using this application it makes a good starting point for our tests. The results
in comparison to today's 3D cards is quite weak. What isn't apparent from the
score is that the textures that the G550 produced were the best I've ever seen
with this benchmark. The shimmering on the water and lighting effects were quite
impressive in the tests designed to take advantage of them. Keep in mind that
gaming isn't this card's strongpoint by design. We'll get to its strongpoints
in just a bit. You can download 3D Mark 2000
here.

Mad
Onion's 3D Mark 2001

Matrox
G550 Dual-DVI

1279

3D
Mark 2001 is a very intensive benchmark that is based on DirectX 8. Wonder how
you will do with the very latest games? Here's your benchmark. What should be
immediately noted is that 3D Mark 2000 and 2001 results cannot be directly compared
to each other. Again we are seeing a non stellar gaming performance. Matrox devotees
are probably pulling their hair out at this point but there is a reason to all
this so lets move on.

Quake
3 Arena

640
x 480

800
x 600

1024
x 768

Fastest

112

77.5

50.1

Normal

73.7

49.9

31.1

High
Quality

59.1

40.9

26.2

Here the resolutions are all
separated. You can figure out where your gaming preferences fall. Normally I test
the highest resolution at 1280x1024 but I chose to go with 1024x768 for two reasons:
most importantly is that the Solarism LCD panel I used for testing only displays
at a maximum of 1024x768, and the second reason is that it was quite obvious that
testing at higher resolutions would have only produced scores which noone would
be interested in. What should be immediately obvious is that this card is taxed
at the higher resolutions and display settings. What is of interest to people
who game only occassionally is that the scores in the lower resolutions were quite
good and even 800x600 in "Fastest" mode offered a very playable experience.
Go for higher resolutions or more intense settings and the performance drops considerably.